9
P.O. Box 921487
Norcross GA, 30010
PRECISION JOINERY SYSTEM
Fig.20
Shop Notes:
You may need to re-drill and re-mount your router to
the router plate if the router and the router bit are too
far off center. Use your centering pin to align the router
plate to the router for re-drilling.
Shop Notes:
Each of the templates that come with the Fast Joint
system are spaced differently. When working on a
project, check your stock width to see if the pattern will
align evenly on both sides of the stock when placed up
against the template alignment block. If the stock is not
equally spaced on both edges, use a spacer block before
starting your cuts.
(refer to "Centering Your Material", page #29)
This is what your Fast-joint™system should look like
when using the 3/16” router bit with Heart templates.
(See Fig. 20).
Caution
DO NOT turn router on with the centering pin in the
router collet. Doing so may result in injury.
Four Sided Box
The type of joint we will be making is referred to as
a half blind joint. Which means, you will only see the
joints on the sides of the box. The front and back of your
box must be made from a minimum of 3/4” stock. The
sides of your box can be made from 1/4” to 3/4”. In the
following example we will be building a 10” square -
four sided box using the heart templates. The front and
back of the box will be made from 3/4” x 10” long stock
using the female template and the sides of the box will
be made from 3/8” x 9-3/4” stock using the male tem-
plate. Use the same species of stock, or for contrast, use a
darker type of wood on the sides of the box and a lighter
type of wood on the front and back of the box.
Stock Preparation
When cutting your joints with the Fast-joint™system,
make sure your stock is at, and that the edge you will be
milling is straight. The unique feature about this system
is, you can cut any length or any width stock. Your Fast-
joint™system will work with the same thickness stock
on both sides of the joint, or use one thickness piece of
stock on one side of the joint and use a different thick-
ness piece of stock on the other side of the joint. You can
even cut angle joints with the Fast-joint™ system. Now
that we have assembled and squared the Fast-joint™ sys-
tem, we are ready to cut some joints. Note: it's a good
idea to make test cuts on sample stock before making
your actual cut.
Set-up the router bit height:
Now we have to set the height of the bit. The bit height
is always set from the thickness of the male stock (sides
of the box). We are using 3/8" thick stock on the sides of
our project, which means the bit needs to be set at a cut-
ting height of 3/8". You can use a ruler to do this, or an
easier way to do this is to use the thickness of your stock
to set the height of the bit. Using your Fast-joint™ system
with the Heart templates installed along with your stan-
dard bushing, 3/16” router bit, and router installed into
your router table, slide your Heart template against the
brass bushing. Place your stock on top of the Fast-joint™
system aligning one edge with the edge of the template.
Raise the bit until it is ush with the top of your stock
and lock the router bit height in place (See Fig. 21).
Fig.21 Bit ush with
top of stock
Shop Notes:
When cutting the sides of our box we subtract 1/4" from
the planned nished size (10") we are making.
